“Ne­tanyahu re­it­er­ated Is­rael’s pol­icy to pre­vent the es­tab­lish­ment of an Ira­nian pres­ence in Syria and to act against Ira­nian and Hezbol­lah ag­gres­sion,” the Prime Min­is­ter’s Of­fice said af­ter the meet­ing. “The two agreed that se­cu­rity del­e­ga­tions from the two coun­tries will meet soon and that a meet­ing be­tween the lead­ers would be co­or­di­nated.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Krem­lin, Ne­tanyahu placed the calls. Last month in Paris, the two men spoke briefly face to face on the side­lines of memo­rial events mark­ing 100 years since the end of World War II.

Rus­sian-Is­raeli ties have been strained since Septem­ber, when Moscow charged Is­rael with be­ing re­spon­si­ble for the down­ing of one of its mil­i­tary planes of the Syr­ian air de­fenses.

Rus­sia’s Em­bassy in Is­rael tweeted de­tails of the con­ver­sa­tion, not­ing that Moscow had “stressed the need to en­sure sta­bil­ity” along the de­mar­ca­tion line be­tween Is­rael and Le­banon in com­pli­ance with UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil Res­o­lu­tion 1701.

“It was em­pha­sized that a con­tact be­tween ex­perts of the de­fense min­istries within the joint work­ing group is rel­e­vant,” the em­bassy said. “Putin em­pha­sized the ne­ces­sity to im­prove the Rus­sian-Is­raeli in­ter­ac­tion in the